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Borivali woman loses ₹1.24L to fake FedEx official and cop
Mumbai: A 39-year-old media executive from Borivali reportedly lost ₹1
Mumbai: A 39-year-old media executive from Borivali reportedly lost ₹1.24 lakh to cyber frauds, posing as FedEx and police officials.
The victim, Anita Aikara, works with an online news portal.
According to the MHB Colony police, Aikara received a phone call on December 16. On answering the call, she heard a pre-recorded message saying she had incurred delivery charges on a package that she had received through FedEX.
Aikara was curious as she was not expecting any packages and hence followed the instructions to speak to a customer service executive. She was subsequently redirected to a man, who identified himself as Pradeep Kumar and claimed to be the chief executive customer service officer at FedEx.
“The man told the victim that on December 11, a package was sent in her name, which contained narcotics. He told her that she should expect a call from the police soon, and within half an hour, she received a Skype call. While the name of the caller’s Skype account was saved as ‘Mumbai Police Station’, the woman on the other end identified herself as Sanjana Menon of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI),” a police officer said.
Over the next two hours, the fake CBI officer, using threats of immediate police action, convinced Aikara that there were four to five bank accounts connected to her Aadhaar card and all these accounts were involved in money laundering. A panicked Aikara was told to immediately visit the Andheri police station and “cooperate” with the investigation, even as she pleaded with the accused saying that her son was crying and she could not go at the moment.
“After a while, a man came on the line and using the same threats made the victim reveal her bank account details. During the call, the victim was aware of receiving text messages but was unable to switch screens,” the officer added.
As soon as the call ended, she realised that a total of ₹1,24,998 had been debited from her account in two instalments. Aikara then obtained the relevant details from her bank and filed a police case on Saturday.
“We have booked the unidentified accused for cheating and impersonation under the Indian Penal Code along with relevant sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Preliminary inquiries indicate that the account where the victim’s money was transferred is located in West Bengal,” the officer said.
